19th-century Radiators and Heating Systems

Brian Roberts

This article provides an illustrated
outline of heating systems during
Victorian and Edwardian times. Its
aim is to provide a simple guide to help
investigators of historic buildings recognise
some of the types of early heating equipment
which may still exist.

The investigation of historical heating
equipment generally starts on site when
the building itself is being altered, restored
or demolished. A major problem is often
to understand what survives, assess its
significance and make informed decisions
about what to do next. Options range from
reuse, retention in situ, to removal to a safer
site or, regrettably in some circumstances, to
thoroughly record before destruction.

Investigators faced with this choice may
include the owner or occupier, architects,
builders, services consultants or contractors,
and local government officers (especially
conservation officers), none of whom may
have the necessary specialist expertise. One
possible solution is to seek advice from a
person or organisation knowledgeable in
this field, where such a person can be found.
The other approach, often restricted by
commercial and time constraints, is to search
for all related documents and drawings.
Information may be available locally,
regionally or at national level, in libraries,
record offices or specialist websites.

The following sources may assist in
identifying the age, type, manufacturer and
importance of various heating equipment:

architectural and engineering design,
construction or record drawings

documents relating to tender
specifications and enquiries, cost
sheets, site reports and correspondence,
commissioning records, and operating
and maintenance instructions

contemporary photographs
which, on close inspection, may
reveal important details

transactions, proceedings, magazines
and journals of relevant professional
institutions such as the Chartered
Institution of Building Services
Engineers (CIBSE), trade associations
such as the Building &
Engineering Services Association (formerly the Heating & Ventilating
Contractors’ Association)
and various industry publications

companies’ histories which can be
rich sources of information on their
products, clients, projects and activities.

The number of firms engaged in the
manufacture and installation of heating
equipment and accessories during the
Victorian and Edwardian periods was
considerable. The number of models or
patterns of a particular item, for example
radiators, often runs into many hundreds.

The most basic type of heating (other than
open fires) is the stove. The earliest Victorian
stoves were made of cast iron, with a door into
which a solid fuel, usually coal, could be fed.
A low-level ash pit door enabled ash, stones
and other residue to be removed. Smaller
stoves could be moved and placed in position
in one piece, requiring only the connection of
a flue pipe leading outdoors. These stoves were
freestanding within the space to be heated.
Larger stoves would be assembled in sections.
Other stoves were installed in a separate
chamber with a cold air inlet and with the warmed air discharged directly, or through
masonry ducts, to the space served. Examples
of both types may still be found, often in
cathedrals and churches. Some are still in use
having been converted to oil or gas firing.

A heating system (as opposed to a standalone
appliance such as a stove) requires a form
of heat producing apparatus (usually a boiler), a
means of distributing the heat (pipes or ducts)
and heat emitters in the space it serves. Types
of heating system in the 19th century included
steam, low-pressure hot water and high- or
medium-pressure hot water. Hot water heating
boilers were manufactured in quantity from
around 1860 onwards (see first illustration).
The first room heaters were pipe coils, often
housed in decorative cases. Radiators were
introduced in the 1880s.

HEATING STOVES

Masonry stoves of brick, earthenware and
porcelain have been used for over a thousand
years in northern Europe. Closed metal stoves
were devised in what is now Germany in the
15th century and improved over the next 200
years, spreading across continental Europe.
But Britain preferred its open fires.

In England, around 1609, the first metal
stoves were imported from Holland to heat the
orange houses of the nobility (the word ‘stove’
may be of Dutch origin and the first English
heated greenhouses were in fact called stoves.)

In the 1790s, Count Rumford devised a
metal stove, while William Strutt with Charles
Sylvester installed his Cockle (or Belper)
stove at Derby Infirmary. This Cockle stove
consisted of a circular iron pot with a rounded
dome. Fuel was consumed on a grate at the
bottom of the furnace, coal or coke being
added through a charging door at the side. Air
for combustion was supplied through a duct to
a chamber below the grate.

A forced warm-air furnace was patented
by Benford Deacon in 1812, using a fan
powered by a descending weight, and used at
the Old Bailey. In the latter part of the 19th
century, ventilating and other improved grates
(the distinction between grates and stoves
is not always clear) were introduced by Sir
Douglas Galton, George Jennings (London
grate), T Elsey (Lloyd’s patent ventilating
grate), DO Boyd (Hygiastic grate) and the firm
of Shorland (Manchester grate).

In 1818, the Marquis de Chabannes
introduced his Calorifere stove (air-warming
furnace) from France. Just before this, in 1816,
the firm of G & J Haden set up in business
in Trowbridge to erect the steam engines of
Boulton & Watt in the West Country. Within
a few years Haden was manufacturing heating
stoves for churches and the country houses
of the gentry. Between 1824 and 1914 they
manufactured and installed nearly 7,000
stoves (right, top picture). Atkins & Marriot introduced
their Thermo-regulated stove in 1825, followed
by the Thermometer stove of Dr Neil Arnott
(Physician Extraordinary to Queen Victoria)
in 1834. The 1830s also saw the development
of the famous Tortoise stove (last illustration on page) by Charles
Portway who went on to manufacture some
17,000 units.

Use of the warm-air stove grew considerably from the middle of the
19th century with the tremendous wave
of Victorian church building and the
construction of many and varied institutions
– prisons, hospitals, schools, workhouses and
asylums. Around this time Dr Goldsworthy
Gurney brought out the large stove which
bears his name (right, middle picture). It was later sold
by the London Warming and Ventilating
Company which in 1897 claimed it had
been used to warm 22 cathedrals and over
10,000 churches, schools and other buildings
(cathedrals heated by Gurney stoves include
Chester, Exeter, Gloucester, Lincoln, Salisbury
and St Paul’s). London Warming was also the
agent for the Choubersky, Salamandre and
similar continuous burning stoves, which only
needed refuelling once a day. Other stoves
of the later Victorian period included Saxon
Snell’s Thermhydric, Mr George’s Calorigen,
Dr Bond’s Euthermic, the Manchester stove of
Shorland and the Convoluted stove of Joseph
Constantine.

Another notable manufacturer
was John Grundy (above right, bottom picture) of London
who founded the Tyldesley Ironworks,
Manchester (Grundy was the first president
of the Institution of Heating & Ventilating
Engineers in 1898). Grundy products included
the Helios and Sirius smoke-consuming grates
and the Hestia warming and ventilating stove.
However, the increasing use of hot water
heating systems and the introduction of the
radiator soon caused a marked decline in the
use of warm-air stoves.

RADIATORS

Radiators, coils and coil-cases from the 1900
catalogue of Mackenzie & Moncur, Edinburgh

A hot-water heater with decorative vertical tubes by
Vincent Skinner found in a Bristol church (Photo:
Frank Ferris, CIBSE Heritage Group)

The term ‘radiator’ is a misnomer since for
column radiators some 70 per cent of the heat
output is by convection (from the circulation
of warm air), not radiation. The development
and mass production of radiators was an
American phenomenon, the first patents
dating from around 1841. Early radiators
were variously shaped ‘heat distributors’, a
mixture of pipes and metal plates. Then came
the introduction of vertical wrought-iron
welded tubes fixed between horizontal top and
bottom headers. These were followed by the
‘looped tube’ type, an inverted-U, fixed to a
base plate, used for both steam and hot water.
Tasker in Philadelphia patented a primitive
sectional radiator in 1858. It is the factory mass
production of radiator sections that could be
connected together that distinguishes them
from pipe coils.

Another pioneer was Joseph Nason who
had spent time working in England with
AM Perkins. It was Perkins who devised a
high-pressure system of hot-water heating
in 1831 which used a solid-fuel-fired brick
furnace or metal chamber containing a
sinuous coil of small-bore seam-welded
wrought iron pipe. With a 6mm thick wall,
the pipes were capable of operating at
temperatures approaching 170°C and pressures
close to 15 times atmospheric pressure. The
system gained rapid acceptance and was
installed in many important buildings but the
concerns of insurance companies led to the
system being operated at lower temperatures
and pressures and it was later largely
discontinued. However, modified systems, converted to oil-firing can still be found in a
number of churches and chapels (below). The
small bore pipe was distributed around the
space to be heated, sometimes rising in banks
of concertinaed coils like a modern radiator.

Until 1892 numerous American
manufacturers produced a variety of designs,
many highly ornamental, but in that year
the three principal manufacturers merged
to form the American Radiator Company.
This firm, trading in Britain as the National
Radiator Company, opened a factory in Hull
in the early 1900s where they manufactured
Ideal radiators. During the 1890s, radiators of
American manufacture were imported into
Britain, but from the turn of the century the
domestic radiator manufacturing industry
became predominant. Radiators were often
housed in decorative casings (above, top picture).

Early British patents for hot-water
radiators include those of Keith (1882 and
1884), Waters (1882), Cannon (1887) and
Heap (1887). At the end of the 19th century,
one expert claimed that British radiator design
had fallen behind the current American
offerings. However, this opinion was based on
external appearance and not on the technical
performance. British designs were generally
plain, although there were exceptions.
American ones were ornate. Gradually,
improvements in foundry technology enabled
more elaborate castings to be made. Radiators
having one, two and then three columns
became available. By 1917, radiators with four
columns were being used.

Perkins system heating pipes in the parish church of
Bruton, Somerset (Photo: Jonathan Taylor)

Although probably developed some
50 years earlier, it was not until the beginning
of the 20th century that the ventilating
radiator was gaining acceptance. The idea
was to remedy the lack of ventilation afforded
by the ordinary ‘direct’ radiator. Essentially,
the lower part of the radiator was blanked off
against the entry of room air, and fresh air was
fed into the base of the radiator by a channel
in the wall behind it. These were sometimes
termed ‘indirect’ radiators when located
outside the room being warmed.

In 1904, claims and counterclaims
relating to the introduction of radiators into
Britain abounded. Acknowledging that steam
radiators were of American origin, the firm of
Longden in Sheffield claimed to have played a
major part in introducing hot-water radiators
to the British market. Rosser & Russell of
London claimed to be the original inventors of
the ventilating radiator, but did not give a date.
Other claimants include The Thames Bank
Iron Company and Weekes & Company. The
case remains unproven, but one of the earliest
is the ventilating radiator introduced by
Walter Jones in 1881. His radiator design was
awarded a silver medal in the same year.

The number and variety of radiator styles
and pattern names available as the Victorian
era came to a close is overwhelming. In 1891, Keith was advertising both the
Universal and the Ornamental, while the
Coalbrookdale Co listed its Hydro-Caloric
(Heap’s Patent). By 1897, the American
Radiator Co was promoting in London their
National Single Column and Rococo designs.
H Munzing in London was importing a
variety of American radiators including Royal
Union, Coronet, Union, and Walworth Patent. Longden of Sheffield featured the Sunbeam
(Leed’s Patent). Wontner-Smith Gray of London
had the Finsbury, while the Meadow Foundry
of Mansfield made the Count and the Peer.
Other British companies merely advertised
their radiators as ‘ornamental’ or ‘special,’
including firms like Haden of Trowbridge,
Williams of Reading, and Thames Bank Iron
and WG Cannon, both in London. Other early
British manufacturers include Beeston, Crane,
Hartley & Sugden, Lumbys, National Radiator
(later Ideal Standard), Vincent Skinner (above
right) and Wm Graham.

In 1906, the London catalogue for the
American Radiator Company listed: Astro
Hospital Swinging, Circular, Colonial Wall,
Corner, Curved, Detroit, Excelsior, Italian,
National, Peerless, Perfection, Primus, Rococo,
and Sanitary Pin. Many of these came in a
choice of heights, widths, column numbers/
arrangements, and in ‘flue’, ‘ventilating’ and
‘non-ventilating’ designs. (See Recommended
Reading for sources of further information on
makes and styles of Victorian and Edwardian
radiators and stoves).

PRESERVATION

Early radiators and heating systems are of
special historic significance both in their own right and as part of the character and significance of a building.
If the building is listed, the permission of the local authority (listed
building consent) will be required for any alterations which affect the
character of the building as a listed building. This could include the
removal of any part of the heating system, including the boiler itself,
but it does not mean that the building must continue to be heated by
an antiquated or inefficient system.

The importance of sustainability is
well recognised, and the use of efficient heat generation is a key element
in the sustainable adaptation of historic buildings. In some cases it
may be possible to adapt an existing system to accommodate a new
and more efficient heat source. In other cases it may be necessary to
leave the existing appliances in situ, and run a new system alongside it,
maintaining the existing ducts and appliances.

Whichever approach is taken, it is vital to seek professional advice
from a qualified consultant who is used to dealing with historic fabric.
Heating equipment should only be operated, opened up or dismantled
by competent engineers familiar with health and safety procedures
and having appropriate tools and equipment. Needless to say, rotating
equipment, high-pressure pipelines, fuel systems, steam and electrical
systems may be hazardous.

Author

Eur Ing BRIAN ROBERTS CEng HonFCIBSE, now retired, has some
50 years of experience in the building services industry, having
served as chair of the CIBSE Heritage Group for 27 years. He has
written over 100 books and technical papers.